Pardon the Interruption – 2019 Edition

Episode Notes

Transcript

The Kennedy-Mighell Report

Pardon the Interruption – 2019 Edition

01/03/2020

 

[Music]

 

Intro: Web 2.0, Innovation, Trend, Collaboration, Software, Metadata… Got the world turning as fast as it can, hear how technology can help, legally speaking with two of the top legal technology experts, authors and lawyers, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Welcome to The Kennedy-Mighell Report here on the Legal Talk Network.

 

[Music]

 

Dennis Kennedy: And welcome to Episode 251 of The Kennedy-Mighell Report. I am Dennis Kennedy in Ann Arbor.

 

Tom Mighell: And I am Tom Mighell in Dallas. Before we get started, we would like to thank our sponsor.

 

Dennis Kennedy: We would like to thank ServeNow, a nationwide network of trusted, prescreened process servers, work with the most professional process servers who have experience with high-volume serves, embrace technology, and understand the litigation process. Visit serve-now.com to learn more.

 

Tom Mighell: And we also want to mention that the second edition of our book, ‘The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies’ is now available on Amazon. Everyone agrees that collaboration is essential in today’s world, but knowing the right tools will make all the difference.

 

Dennis Kennedy: In our last episode we talked with our friend Allison Shields about how to level up your LinkedIn game. It’s the end of the year and it’s time for our annual recap of legal tech and we have both a special format and a special guest. That means we have a guest for the second straight episode. Could it be a bit of a trend?

 

Longtime listeners will know that ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption show, also known as PTI with Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon was one of the inspirations for The Kennedy-Mighell Report from the very beginning. Our tradition is to use some of the elements of PTI for the format of this recap episode.

 

Now, Tom likes to point out that since I am the older and grumpier one, I play the role of Tony Kornheiser, except that instead of the way Tony always wins on PTI, Tom always wins on this podcast.

 

Tom, what’s all on our agenda for this episode?

 

Tom Mighell: Well, all that you have just said is correct. In this edition of The Kennedy-Mighell Report, we will indeed be recapping the year in technology, but in a Pardon the Interruption format, and this year we have got a special guest, our favorite fan of the show, Debbie Foster. Thanks for joining us on this episode Debbie.

 

Debbie Foster: Absolutely glad to be here.

 

Tom Mighell: And for those of you familiar with PTI, you are going to recognize some of your favorite segments. For those of you who are unfamiliar with PTI, we will have three segments. The first is Toss Up, in which we purposely take opposite sides of a legal tech topic, given that there is three of us, purposely taking opposite sides is going to be very interesting here.

 

What’s the Word, in which we fill in the blank on a statement about a legal tech topic with a well-chosen word or sort of word. And our own new segment, Buzzword Bingo, in which we categorize a legal tech buzzword as overused, underused or rightly used. And then we end with a fast response big finish.

 

To give you, Debbie and Dennis a sneak preview of the results, as usual I win every segment.

 

So let’s get started by letting Debbie introduce yourself real quick to those of you who haven’t heard her on the podcast before.

 

Debbie Foster: Awesome. Thanks Tom. I am really excited to be here. Debbie Foster from Affinity Consulting. I am a fan girl of The Kennedy-Mighell Report and have been from the beginning and I am actually going to start lobbying here very soon for the parting shots book that Tom and Dennis mentioned a couple of episodes ago.

 

But I spend most of my time working with law firms all over the country, helping them really understand how they get their work done and how they can better leverage technology to work as efficiently as possible, and I use the word efficiently on purpose. We will talk more about that later.

 

Tom Mighell: Yes. Thank you Debbie and good luck to you in the game. Our first segment is called Toss Up. In Toss Up, each of us are required to take a different side on each topic. Again, I still don’t know how this is going to work with three sides. Each of us argues his or her position and at the end, again, I declare myself the winner. So we already know how this is going to end up.

 

Dennis, are the rules clear, no agreeing?

 

Dennis Kennedy: I disagree about the rules and about the results. In fact, I disagree with the whole system, but here is the first Toss Up question. So at least $2 billion and maybe more than $15 billion, depending on how you count it, of venture capital investment has been made in legal tech in 2019. Will that dramatically accelerate changes in legal technology?

 

(00:04:50)

 

Tom Mighell: Okay, some will think that number is high, some will think that number is low. I mean by other industry standards 15 billion for the legal industry, maybe not so high, but my position is, you have got to start somewhere and frankly we have been starting for a long time, this just happens to be the biggest year of investment ever and I think that it’s a sign of good things to come. It’s a sign that people are recognizing the value of technology in the legal industry and are doing something about it.

 

So it may not mean anything for this year, it may be just small potatoes as far as other industries are concerned, but I like what I see and I am looking forward to the next few years.

 

Debbie.

 

Debbie Foster: So I am going to say that if we are talking about small law firms, I think it’s barely relevant, and I know that might sound controversial and it may be relevant for larger firms, especially in the litigation support area, but from a small firm perspective, which is where I spend a lot of my time and just let’s say definition’s sake 50 lawyers or less, or even 10 lawyers or less, the small firm market, the very last thing they need is more options when it comes to legal technology.

 

I tell our clients all the time, a confused mind does nothing and I feel like that’s oftentimes what happens when smaller firms are looking at technology investments. So the development of new features, the concept of a platform, I love these ideas and I am certainly glad that people are paying attention and investing, but change is slow, user adoption is slow and I don’t believe that money will accelerate that.

 

Dennis Kennedy: Well, I am going to take the approach that it is going to make some fairly significant changes probably as we like to say about technology that we will underestimate the — we will overestimate the short-term effect of this money coming in and we will underestimate the long-term effect. But I think it’s going to make a lot happen and I think there is potentially a bit of a bubble.

 

I think that Tom and I have talked in the past and others as well about some of the — there are some very large investments that it’s difficult to really understand how they are going to work out and make sense in the long-term. But that’s kind of what happens there.

 

But I think that the capital coming in is going to speed up development in a number of ways, especially in sophisticated technologies that will roll out in different ways, and I think the big surprise is, some of the ways it’s going to come out is in the access to justice area as people sort of route around law firms and look at direct to consumer technologies and services.

 

Tom Mighell: All right, our next Toss Up is this. The most interesting legal tech developments are happening in the access to justice area. Debbie, you first.

 

Debbie Foster: So I am going to go first and own up and say that this is not an area where I really feel like I am an expert, but here is what I am hearing. I still hear so frequently that legal services are out of reach for so many people and it’s hard for me to see where the developments in legal technology are really making a practical impact in that area.

 

Dennis Kennedy: I totally agree with this. This is where I am actually seeing things start to happen. So document automation being used for pro se litigants, for standard court forms. Online technologies being used for mediation, arbitration, other things like that, and also it’s a place where people are looking at data as a way to improve legal services, justice in general and get an idea of what’s working and what isn’t working in the system.

 

So I think that if there is one place to watch in legal technology, for me it’s the access to justice area.

 

Tom Mighell: Okay. So I guess my response is really where else are interesting legal tech developments happening other than access to justice. I mean I don’t really hear that there is hackathons being made to come up with new tools and new apps for other areas outside of access to justice. I think those are the places where all the innovation is starting to pour frankly. I think that’s where all of the organizations that are trying to send money to things or really just on the school level are looking at is how do we bring legal services to more people. And so I would say I don’t see any other place where interesting legal tech development is happening. So I think that the default answer has to be yes.

 

All right, our third Toss Up, there is too much focus on new shiny objects in the legal tech world. Dennis, you first.

 

(00:09:58)

 

Dennis Kennedy: Are you kidding me? I mean how can there be too much focus on new stuff? This is how we move forward. I think that you see what’s out there that’s new, what’s working in other places, how that’s moving the ball forward with other things and then you bring it back to law. I don’t see that many people focusing on new shiny stuff anyway and most of the time I think it’s an excuse for people who don’t want to move past what they already have.

 

Tom Mighell: Well, I will say there is so much focus on new shiny. I don’t know who is in your Twitter feed Dennis, but what I have been seeing, it’s always about what’s the next new thing, what can we move onto. With social media these days, we are always becoming more like the 24 hour news cycle. We have to find something new and interesting to talk about because talking about yesterday’s tech is just not interesting.

 

So my answer is short and sweet. Yes, too much focus on new shiny objects. I think that one of the themes you are going to get out of this show is going back to the fundamentals and going back to the basics are so important that new shiny objects are not the right things to be focusing on, but the sad truth is, yes, too much focus.

 

Debbie, do you agree or disagree with my position?

 

Debbie Foster: I do agree with your position. I think that shiny objects are a huge procrastination strategy or procrastination tool. I know what I need to do, but I don’t really want to take the time to learn about what I need to learn about to do what I need to do, so I am going to go buy something else or I am going to go leverage some other technology or I am going to go sign up for this new subscription thing and see if that helps me. That’s an easy button.

 

If that’s something that’s not going to require me to have to stop and think about how I get my work done. And I think that it happens so often that I go into a firm and I say tell me about the technology you use and they rattle off a list of things and there is all kinds of duplication of effort when it comes to the tools that they have, because they didn’t take the time to learn about what they have and then they heard about this new shiny thing.

 

So I think it goes back to confusion. There is so much focus on it and I wish everybody would just kind of take a couple of steps back, figure out what they have, how to use it, what makes sense in their firm and then figure out where to kind of plug the gaps on what else they need.

 

Tom Mighell: And all right, we will finish with a lightning round in Toss Up. Here is a lightning round and I guess that means we are going to go really quick, which means hottest new technology or tech trend of 2019, I will go first.

 

I think the hottest trend, it won’t be a technology — it’s part of technology, but it’s more of a trend as far as I am concerned and I am calling it the rise of the deepfake state, which means at the beginning of the year we saw all of these websites about this person is not real and this dog is not real and they were showing how artificial intelligence could piece together and make it look like real people, and at the end of the year we are having stories about Facebook removing hundreds of sites from Facebook because they were all fake and they had all been created as artificially intelligent sites that were made to look like people but really weren’t. I think we are going to see more and more of this stuff happening and it’s I think a pretty big deal.

 

Debbie.

 

Debbie Foster: So I am going to go with client portals in 2019. When I was thinking about this, what have people asked me a lot about, what kinds of things are people saying, we really need to figure out how to this. And I have gotten a ton of questions about client portals. They wanted — people want to know how to use them, they want to understand more about securely sharing information; however, client portals can be a little bit scary when it comes to what can the client see, making sure people feel really comfortable with the fact that the client isn’t going to see like draft items and work product. And so I have seen lots of interesting questions, but execution and user adoption is very low.

 

Tom Mighell: All right Dennis, lightning round, our guest isn’t getting the idea of the lightning round, move it.

 

Dennis Kennedy: At first I always think of platforms and ecosystems, but I am going to go with something that touches on that, but is a little bit different and that is looking at technology as just one part of innovation. So going back to the notion of technology as tools, the big issue in law is innovation and then technology is the tool or the means to adopt the innovation.

 

Tom Mighell: All right, and that’s it for our first segment Toss Up, and as predicted, I clearly won.

 

Dennis Kennedy: What?

 

Debbie Foster: I don’t agree.

 

Tom Mighell: All right. We have got to move on now to our second segment which is What’s the Word. In this segment we have got a sentence about a legal tech topic with a blank in it. Each of us has to come up with the best word or sort of word to fill in the blank.

 

Dennis, what’s our first sentence?

 

(00:14:53)

 

Dennis Kennedy: The combination of the adoption of the ethical duty of technology competence in many states, I think it’s 38 now and a move by California, Utah and a few other states to open up or re-regulate the legal profession had a or an blank impact on the legal profession, Tom?

 

Tom Mighell: Well, clearly it’s yet to be determined. See what I mean by almost a word, kind of a word, I will say hyphenated makes the word. So, yet to be determined impact on the legal profession. Too soon.

 

Now, granted we have been waiting multiple years, I think we are up now to 38 states that require the ethical duty of technology competence. I think my state Texas has finally recognized it, but we still kind of have to ask what does that mean. I believe there have been some attempts. They have been brought up in some court cases. They have been brought up in some ethics opinions or grievances, but I really don’t see that there has been a meaningful effect of having these rules in place.

 

Likewise, California and Utah, they are doing I think some really interesting things. I know in California are getting a lot of push back from lawyers in trying to re-regulate the legal profession and I think that they still have a long way to go there. But while these efforts I think are very interesting, I think it’s still early days. I think it’s too soon to tell and we won’t know for I think a while yet.

 

Debbie.

 

Debbie Foster: So my one word, which isn’t actually a one word either, but it’s definitely shorter than Tom’s, is little to no, and I think that as of now it has had little to no impact, but it will have an impact. I am confident that it will have a long-term impact.

 

Dennis Kennedy: So I am going to actually use one word, which is minuscule, other than the fact it’s going to make the word re-regulation the most commonly used and most boring term of 2020. So we will see a lot of discussion of that.

 

I think there is going to be tons of push back, especially in California, so I think it will be — developments will be slow, but the Utah thing is really interesting to me because they have created a sandbox there and makes me think Tom and Debbie that maybe the three of us should start a legal tech services company as a Utah company and see how far we can go with it.

 

Tom Mighell: All right. Our second sentence, the one new technology all lawyers should be learning about is blank? Debbie.

 

Debbie Foster: I am going with Microsoft Teams because I really do believe that Microsoft Teams can help us with the email overload problem that so many lawyers are experiencing.

 

Dennis Kennedy: And my one word is and you have just got to —

 

Tom Mighell: What is your one word Dennis?

 

Dennis Kennedy: You have just got to remember that if you are imagining spaces here, there really aren’t, it’s called the Current Cybersecurity attack vectors, all one word. So I think that what — I think lawyers are really bad on cybersecurity generally, as is well known, and I think the big problem is just not knowing what’s out there and what the current attack vectors really are.

 

So now it’s ransomware, there are some other payment skimming things that are happening, but I think you really need to know what the bad people are up to out there so you can protect yourself.

 

Tom Mighell: And my one word was going to be Microsoft Teams, but our guest host was smart and stole it from me, because she is absolutely right, I think Microsoft Teams is something that everybody should be learning about. So I am going to choose instead smart assistants. I think that over the past year and in the coming year the assistants that we use to run the devices, the mobile devices that we have, have become even smarter, have more capabilities, do even more amazing things and there are multiple ways that they can help us, not just in our job, but also in our personal life as well.

 

And I think that it makes sense to understand how to use these tools and how they can help you be more efficient, how they can help you be more productive. They are definitely worth looking at. So if you are not already using one or if you are using one but you are probably just scratching the surface, it would make sense to find a guide on how to use it better and take some time and learn.

 

Debbie Foster: Excellent. So our third question is teaching legal tech to law students is blank, and Dennis is going to kick this one off.

 

Dennis Kennedy: So my word is challenging, because I do it and I know that it’s challenging, but it’s also rewarding to me as well. But I think it is challenging because there is really a lot that can be taught, it’s a little bit difficult to focus. And then there is a sort of lack of balance between what you can teach students and really get them up to speed and then the backward step or two they are likely to take when they go to most law firms.

 

(00:20:07)

 

Tom Mighell: And the word that I choose is that teaching legal-tech to law students is expanding, and I don’t have any hard facts on this, but I’m basing my use of the word “expanding” on the fact that over the past probably six to eight months I’ve either communicated with or gotten email communications from lawyers or professors who are starting up legal technology courses at their law school, and never in the past 6 or 7, 10, 15 years have I seen that much activity going on at the law schools, at least not to me personally or publicly.

 

So I think that we’re seeing it a lot more. I think that law schools are finally getting with it and they are starting to offer it. I think that they will then find that it’s the word that Dennis describes “challenging”, but nevertheless important that we’re seeing more law schools taking the plunge and offering these types of courses.

 

Dennis Kennedy: Debbie.

 

Debbie Foster: So my word is “essential”. I think it is critically important. The only thing that I’m going to add that Dennis and Tom didn’t really touch on, is I think that what is essential is helping law students understand what is available. It’s more familiarity training of legal-tech than actual training. I think them leaving law school understanding what kinds of technology are available, is much more important than them understanding how to use it because oftentimes with the exception of word and outlook and things like that, but oftentimes if they learn how to use a particular practice management program that at least does give them the experience of what one can do, but if that’s not the one they’re going to use in practice, it’s not always helpful, but I think it’s absolutely essential.

 

Tom Mighell: Thank you, Debbie, and that’s it for What’s the Word. And once again, I’ve racked up another tomendous victory.

 

Dennis Kennedy: Well, what kind of word is that?

 

Tom Mighell: Sorry, Dennis, we’ve got to go to a break and before I move on to our next segment, let’s take a quick break for a message from our sponsor.

 

[Music]

 

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[Music]

 

Tom Mighell: And now let’s get back to The Kennedy-Mighell Report. I’m Tom Mighell.

 

Dennis Kennedy: And I’m Dennis Kennedy, along with our special guest Debbie Foster.

 

I’m not sure about the judging on this show. Do I get to throw a challenge flag? Debbie, don’t you think that Tom is definitely doing some home cooking as our referee tonight?

 

Debbie Foster: Absolutely, yeah.

 

Tom Mighell: Oh, that’s it. I am going to call a delay of game penalty right there on both of you. We need to move on to get this thing in under 30 minutes. It’s time for our new segment and that’s called Buzzword Bingo. Dennis, do you want to tell us a little bit about it?

 

Dennis Kennedy: This is a new innovation for us that might disrupt the whole podcasting ecosystem and open the door for AI and robot lawyers.

 

Tom Mighell: We saw what you did there.

 

Dennis Kennedy: We’ll mention it 2019 legal-tech buzzword and categorize it as underused, overused or rightly used. Tom, buzz away on the first topic.

 

Tom Mighell: All right, the first topic is Artificial Intelligence or AI, Machine Learning and RPA, the trifecta. Debbie?

 

Debbie Foster: I say overused.

 

Tom Mighell: Dennis?

 

Dennis Kennedy: I’m going to say they’re underused because I think that people will just kind of throw the terms around and they don’t dig into what’s going on there, and I think that the potential for change that’s happening out there is really great and I think people just kind of fluff it off and like to go back to their — to the easy technologies they’re comfortable with.

 

Tom Mighell: Now you just admitted that it’s overused by saying that people throw it around because it is over, over, over, my script says over, over, overused. Artificial Intelligence is being thrown at every technology out there. I was at the Association for Corporate Council and every booth that had something said, we’re now using Artificial Intelligence to do this.

 

Well, they had it for years but now suddenly it means something and it’s important and I think it is so overused that people are confused and it’s blurring the line and it’s not being helpful to people on understanding what really is Artificial Intelligence and what’s not.

 

Debbie, next topic?

 

(00:24:58)

 

Debbie Foster: Second buzzword is “blockchain” and we’re going to go to Dennis first.

 

Dennis Kennedy: Okay, so of course I think the blockchain is really underused and I would say that what the word it goes with or the phrase it goes with distributed ledger which I think would help people understand the potential blockchain is even more underused. So what I say is try to figure out what’s happening in the blockchain world in the areas outside of law.

 

And I think you’ll find that you’re going to see some potential and use the word a lot more often in 2020.

 

Tom Mighell: And so I’m going to say underused and the basis that I’m going to give for that is that over the past year, last year at this time I would say that blockchain was the hot topic and in the past year I got to be honest, I hear very little about it. In fact, when I see legal technology conferences, they’re still having sessions on an introduction to blockchain as if it’s some new thing.

 

So I think that not enough is being made of it. I know it’s being used, I know it’s being used to great effect in certain areas and it can be used to great effect in the legal area. I think that lawyers aren’t understanding it enough or aren’t getting enough exposure to it to make a difference at this point.

 

Debbie?

 

Debbie Foster: I’m going to say that it’s rightly used. I think that I hear about it now a reasonable amount of time versus last year when I heard about it all the time, but I do think that many, many lawyers that I work with don’t have any idea what it is or how it would ever apply to their practice.

 

Dennis Kennedy: And our third buzzword is “cybersecurity”. Tom?

 

Tom Mighell: I think that cybersecurity is rightly used. I think that the right people are sounding all the right alarms about cybersecurity not their fault, if lawyers or other people aren’t following the rules. I think that we’re getting the right warnings, we’re getting the right information, we’re not doing enough about it but that’s not the fault of the people who are using the term.

 

Debbie Foster: Yeah, and I’m going to go with rightly used. I would probably lean towards under if I had to pick under or over, but what I wish we would be doing with cybersecurity is telling more stories about the things that are happening for people who aren’t paying close enough attention because I think that whole ten feet tall and bulletproof like nothing bad has ever happened to me nor will it ever happen to me is a real challenge.

 

Dennis Kennedy: And I think it’s underused because lawyers like to avoid the topic and I think there’s a big gap between what people talk about on cybersecurity and the walk that they walk.

 

Tom Mighell: And our last buzzword is going to be efficiency. Debbie?

 

Debbie Foster: So this one is a tough one because I think that efficiency is overused. We’re talking about it all the time. I can tell you though that it happens regularly, I would say weekly that I’m standing behind someone and watching how they are doing something in Microsoft Word or Microsoft Outlook and I’m thinking, oh my goodness, there is a much better way to do that or I talked to a firm about how they’re drafting their documents and I’m sitting there thinking it’s 2019, how are they still doing that?

 

So it is definitely something that we hear all the time but I don’t think there’s any end in sight for how often we should be hearing it and how often we will hear it in the future.

 

Dennis Kennedy: And I think it’s overused, the same as you Debbie, people talk about it a lot and they talk about their efficiencies and wanting to implement efficiencies but typically they don’t dig down very much into it. So people don’t look at metrics, they don’t look at key performance indicators, they don’t look at actual — the lean and other approaches to improve efficiency and eliminate waste.

 

So I think it’s — to me it’s — in a lot of cases is an empty term that people like to throw around as a substitute for actual improvements.

 

Tom Mighell: And I think we’re all in agreement here. I’m going to say over too but there’s a reason that it’s overused and that’s kind of echoing what Debbie talks about is it’s overused because people are so wildly inefficient, and Dennis to be honest, I think that it starts before we get to even the point where we’re measuring things or using metrics for anything. It’s doing something as simple or as straightforward as learning how to build that macro or something in Microsoft Word or more efficient ways to do the simple technology that we use.

 

Some attorneys just don’t have that down yet and I think that until we can learn to be more efficient with the use of technology, we’re not achieving that goal that we tell people that technology can really make you more productive because if you’re spending more time using it, then you really need to be using it. You’re not going to believe that the dream or the reality is true that you can be more efficient if you just know how to use the technology.

 

(00:30:01)

 

And this just in, it looks like I won again, and that’s no buzzword.

 

All right, and now, we’re on to the Big Finish. We’re going to answer six questions in 60 seconds. I can’t believe we’ve said we’re going to do it in 60 seconds but here it goes. Dennis, number one — actually Debbie, number one for you.

 

Debbie, your best tech decision of 2019?

 

Debbie Foster: Hands down, my Surface Laptop 3 platinum 15-inch screaming superfast. It could use another port or two but I love, love, love my Surface Laptop 3.

 

Dennis, oh this is going to be an easy one for Dennis, best legal-tech book of 2019?

 

Dennis Kennedy: This is — actually it’s little tricky because I like both of my books but I think my innovation book is more about innovation than tech. So I’m going to go with the ‘Make LinkedIn Work For You’ book that Allison Shields and I just published, which I think is a great resource on LinkedIn for lawyers and other legal professionals.

 

And Debbie, you’ve got me convinced that I got to talk Tom into doing the parting shots book for 2020.

 

Debbie Foster: Agree.

 

Dennis Kennedy: Tom, as the biggest Google fanboy in the world, what’s the best Google product of the year?

 

Tom Mighell: I got to say it’s a toss-up and there’s really no — there wasn’t a new Google product that I really liked this year. So I’m just going to say that my toss-up is between Google Photos or Google Assistant. If you’re not using Google Photos to store your photos, you’re really missing out on a very smart interesting tool that just got better this year. Now can print from Walgreens or CVS just by pressing a few buttons and you can go pick up prints. It’s just a great all-around photo manager, and like I mentioned before Google Assistant; well, I didn’t actually mention that I thought Google Assistant is the smartest but now I might as well since I’ve been no mistaking me as being the Google fanboy here. I think it’s the smartest assistant out there and the best one for people to use.

 

All right, Debbie, what tech do you most want your lawyer clients to explore in 2020?

 

Debbie Foster: This is really sad but what I really want them all to do is move their stuff to the cloud, one way or another, there’s a lot of different ways to get there but that’s really, really what we’re going to be focused on working with our clients on in 2020.

 

And then I’m going to throw this out to Dennis. Dennis, your favorite new app or technology for 2019?

 

Dennis Kennedy: First of all, I love the cloud and have for a long time, but my favorite technology is actually combination of AirPods and the Spotify music service because I love soundscapes as providing me sort of the audio background to help me work better and I just think it’s just an ideal combination of and a great way to use technology in a truly efficient, can I say that word, way.

 

And Tom, your best tip for 2020?

 

Tom Mighell: Well, my tip is learn how to use the Microsoft Office 365 products together. 5 or 10 years ago we would have been making jokes at Microsoft’s expense on the products that they were offering, but now just seeing how well they work together, the Office Suite with Teams with SharePoint with OneDrive they all integrate together so well that makes it so easy to be productive and efficient, it’s hard not to ignore that. So, please, if you’re already in Office 365 world learn more about how to use all those tools together.

 

Dennis Kennedy: Well, that was our quick look at 2019 and we’re ready to move on to 2020 with a bunch of great new topics and ideas to share with you. Thank You Debbie Foster for joining us and a Happy New Year to all.

 

Tom Mighell: And so that wraps it up for this edition of The Kennedy-Mighell Report. Thanks for joining us on the podcast. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or on the Legal Talk Network site where you can find archives and show notes of our previous episodes.

 

If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can reach out to us on LinkedIn or leave us a voicemail, that voicemail number is 720-441-6820. So until the next podcast, I’m Tom Mighell.

 

Dennis Kennedy: And I’m Dennis Kennedy, and you’ve been listening to The Kennedy-Mighell Report, a podcast on legal technology with an Internet focus. If you like what you heard today, please rate us in Apple podcasts and we’ll see you next time for another episodes of The Kennedy-Mighell Report on the Legal Talk Network.

 

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Outro: Thanks for listening to The Kennedy-Mighell Report. Check out Dennis and Tom’s book, ‘The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together’ from ABA Books or Amazon, and join us every other week for another edition of The Kennedy-Mighell Report, only on the Legal Talk Network.

 

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